The Performativity In Allen Ginsberg’s Poetry

Allen Ginsberg is one of the iconic American poets of the 20 th century and has a prominent place in American literature.Most researches on Ginsberg focus on the Beat Generation,relationship between Ginsberg and Buddhist thought,Ginsberg’s reception and influence in China,etc.,neglecting an important features of Ginsberg’s poetry: performativity.At the transition of the 20 th and 21 st century,there was an important turn in literary criticism towards the performativity of literature or the eventfulness of literature.Inspired by the theory of performativity,the author of this thesis has read closely Ginsberg’s poetry（with Howl as the key text）,essays,and critical biographies,with the aim to approach the performativity of the works,focusing on its reflection in Ginsberg’s the poetic text,the author’s intention,and the author’s manner of composition.In exploring the performativity of poetry,the author of this thesis finds that the performativity of poetry is reflected in the poetic text and the author’s intentions.Performers should be the poetic text and the author,and therefore two different levels of performativity need to be explored.This thesis provides a specific analysis of how the text do things with words,how the text transforms the reader in the process of reading,the significance of transmedia performance,and how the performativity of the author’s intention is manifested.In addition,the tendency towards poetic performance in Ginsberg’s poetry cannot be ignored: his later poems are increasingly orally performed,mainly through the sound words suitable for chanting,the use of natural breathing rhythms in poetic performance,the use of repetition and prose to construct poetic rhythm,and the extreme attention paid to the placement of vowels and stresses in poetic composition.